Robert Carstairs
Scarred Archaeologist and Jack-of-all-trades. Agility: d8, Smarts: d10, Spirit: d8, Strength: d4, Vigour: d6 Skills: Climbing: d4, Fighting: d8, Guts: d8, Intimidation: d4, Investigation: d8, Knowledge (History): d10, Lockpicking: d6, Notice: d8, Persuasion: d6, Repair: d8, Riding: d4, Shooting: d8, Stealth: d6, Streetwise: d8, Survival: d10, Throwing: d4, Tracking: d4. Parry: 5, Toughness: 5, Pace: 6,' Charisma': -2, Reason: 1, Status: 5, XP: 60 Edges: Linguist, Connections (Press), Tomb Raider, Investigator. Starting Hindrances: Bad Luck, Cabal Puppet, Over Confident, Ugly '''Hindrances Gained During Play: '''Major Phobia (Elephants) '''Languages: '''English, French, Arabic, Latin, Ancient Egyptian, Romanian, Spanish. Character Background Robert born into a middle class family is the only child of Harry and Elizabeth Carstairs. Harry Carstairs is a world renowned historian and archaeologist specialising in Ancient Egypt and now spends his time as London’s Museum of National History Curator. Elizabeth Carstairs was also a budding historian in her youth preferring to study the history of Africa once married Elizabeth became a “home maker”, however she is in the employ of the Museum to write papers on both Local and African History. In his youth due to the nature of his parents work Robert lead a secluded childhood preferring to spend his time among the vaults and artefacts of the museum than with other children from school. He was blessed with a fantastic education paid for by private donators of the museum as a gift for his father. Out of school he was kept very busy by his father, continually being challenged to solve riddles, codes and overcome very difficult physical barriers and obstacles to earn or discover prizes. Often friends of his fathers unknown to Robert would observe and time him in these trials, on one occasion at the age of eleven his mother fell out with his father after he fell and hurt himself, when comforting Robert asleep his mother said “I don’t want you to have any part in their organisation, you should be doing what all young boys do not preparing for that”. Since then Robert always had the feeling he was destined for something much bigger than a position at the museum. After studying at Oxford University Robert was immediately contracted by the museum to carry out field research and excavation across many parts of the world and like his father he always had a passion for Egypt and North Africa after several years of contracting out to various organisations and museums, London’s Museum of Natural History offered Robert a permanent contract of employment and within his first year he had doubled the value of the Museums Egyptian collection and his Career was looking very promising indeed. During his second year Robert gained a reputation as someone that does not fail and quickly became the ‘go to’ man for many museums and organisations wanting items of huge importance and value discovered or retrieved from across the world in a ‘no questions asked’ manner. Because he was under the employ of the museum his father managed all of these ‘contracts’ and the museum gained a huge source of revenue through selling the services of Robert Carstairs. With all of his success Robert always held himself back. His confidence, determination and passion to deliver on promises soon turned into arrogance and over confidence, this coupled with his poor social skills meant that when he should have been climbing the social ladder and becoming very wealthy he became some what of a social outcast. That being said his reputation and skills remained. His father came to him with his biggest job yet to retrieve a tablet of solid gold rumoured to be lost forever in a tomb somewhere in Suez Egypt, this tablet depicts the sacrifice of slaves to summon a being of great power. Harry was not his normal self when briefing Robert and warned him to very careful on this job and that four teams had narrowed down the search of the tomb but had not been successful in locating the tablet (which was not unusual for Robert to be given a job that many had failed to complete) but these teams had never returned from there expeditions or been seen since. His father also explained that the organisation that is paying for the tablet is one of the most powerful in the world and a swift completion will be looked on VERY favourably. When he arrived in Suez Robert had a very uncomfortable feeling that he had never experienced before, not wasting time he located the tomb within 2 days and made preparations to enter under the cover of night. Once in the tomb Robert was soon astonished to find that he had not been the first there in recent times and that torches were lit throughout the grand tomb. In the main chamber he found the Tablet and several other artefacts that seem to contradict much of the history written about ancient Egypt, after collecting the other artefacts he disturbed the tablet and a strange purple light filled the chamber and a beautiful woman stood in front of him, once he had overcome the shock he realised that they were not alone and that surrounding them were what seemed humans that were rotten with decay yet stood as any other, the woman said nothing and within seconds seemed to cast light from her hands and in a focused burst hit Carstairs directly in the face! At first it seemed to fill him with unexplainable and uncontrollable energy that he was powerless to resist. After the crest of energy came a wave of agonising pain which felt like the flesh on his face was bubbling. Out of instinct he drew his Webley pistol but the woman was gone and her minions were closing in on him the following melee was a blur and his torso and arms were ravaged by the claws of the grotesque beasts somehow he managed to free himself and bolt for the moonlit sands outside when he reached the cool air the tablet flared and the tomb he had just escaped from collapsed in front of him almost imploding, within seconds his wounds which seemed fatal healed leaving horrific scars, to this day it feels like some of the beautiful woman’s power remains in him. On returning with this treasure Carstairs was gifted a fine property in London by this powerful organisation however after debriefing his father and this anonymous client as to what occurred that evening he has never been free of the feeling that he is being watched. His scars have since turned Carstairs into an utter recluse and where he was once a social outcast he now ignores formalities and says exactly what he means and does not care for peoples opinions or feelings, to all but those closest to him (or know what he has been through) he is considered very rude. He now lives for his work, but still somewhere in his core he believes he is destined for greatness. Carstairs and 'The Little People' Having encountered a band of stunted, man-eating creatures in Yorkshire, Carstairs discovered in their lair a series of letters that indicated these creatures had offered their aid to the agents of the Cabal worldwide. Along with these letters there were a number of maps which, sadly, contained no reference points, such that they are useles unless the maps can be put in context. Carstairs is currently engaged in a research project that he hopes will prove of great use to the Rippers organisation througout the world in identifying the areas within which each of these maps will provide the locations of the colonies of these 'Little People'. Further details of his work can be found here. The Colt During a sea voyage in early 1893, Carstairs came across a wooden box containing what appeared to be an early model Single-Action Colt revolver, that had been modified to fire modern cartridges. Unique features of the gun include the text "non timebo mala" (latin, meaning "I will fear no evil") and a pentagram engraved on the handle. It came with 7 silver bullets, engraved with the numbers 7-13. The box itself had room for a full complement of 13 bullets. Also in the box was this letter, explaining a little of the provenance of the gun.